Phil Collins- Face Value 45th Anniversary 2-23

To this day I recall vividly the very first time I heard Phil Collins’ first solo album, Face Value. It had arrived a few weeks into 1981 on a little white promotional cassette, about six weeks before release to the public. Driving home from ROCK 103 late that night on a deserted Memphis highway in my blue and white 1966 Pontiac LeMans (nicknamed “The Shark” by Big Star drummer Jody Stephens), I shoved the Phil Collins cassette into the car stereo system, which was worth as much as the car back then. The first song on Face Value hypnotically provided a perfectly surreal soundtrack to the heavy low clouds and mist I was hurtling through…until Phil Collins’ monster drums on “In the Air Tonight” peeled back my scalp!

My guest Phil Collins here In the Studio will set the record straight regarding the many assumptions and misconceptions regarding the timeline and motivation behind his first non-Genesis solo album Face Value on its forty-fifth anniversary the week of February 23. –Redbeard